


and not count the cost

by orphan_account



Category: Winternight Series - Katherine Arden
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Rampant Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17602439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mortality comes upon Morozko as slow as winter melts into spring. He finds that he does not mind.





	and not count the cost

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed The Winter of the Witch, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what was going on with Morozko at the end, so this is sheer speculation on my part. @Katherine Arden explain

In retrospect, Morozko thinks that the first sign should have been his knees.

 

He does not have _knees,_ as such; no more than he has joints, or bones, or skin, or lungs to fill with winter air. He has approximations of them all, because he cannot ride the world without them, cannot carve birds out of wood, cannot kiss Vasya or sleep beside her at night. He has a form because he _wishes_ it, and his knees should not ache.

 

But there comes a morning after he has raced Vasya through Midnight on horseback, and he wakes up with an ache in his joints. He lies there for a long moment, frowning, trying to place the sensation. It is _less_ than his fight with Medved in Moscow, which rattled his very being. It is _more_ than the feeling of bark under his fingertips. A strange, hard-to-grasp sensation that slips away when he tries to quantify it.

 

He has taken to sleeping when Vasya sleeps, if only because she complains if he lies awake beside her all night.

 

(“What do you _do_ during those hours,” she asked him once. “watch me?”

 

“Sometimes,” he replied, mostly to make her scowl. “Or I sit by the fire.”

 

“You are ridiculous,” she said. Her dark brows were drawn together but there was a smile lurking about the corners of her mouth. “You should try to sleep once in a while. It would do you good.”)

 

So. He has been sleeping, and it is a heavy, strange experience, perhaps as close to dying as he will ever come. But he likes best the moment when he wakes up next to Vasya. He likes the long silence of the morning, when he can turn on his side, pluck locks of hair out of her face, and watch her until she stirs and drags him in sleepily for a kiss.

 

This morning, she leans over, presses her lips against his temple, and frowns at him when he does not respond.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Nothing,” Morozko says, on reflex. “I am still accustoming myself to having dreams.”

 

Vasya laughs, and the strange ache in his joints is forgotten in favor of more kisses, and breakfast, and the sunlight spilling across the snow outside.

 

 

 

The second sign is the hunger. He does not _need_ to eat, although he does when Vasya is visiting, or when they come to Moscow at midwinter. It is the polite thing to do. But there comes a midwinter feast, fifty years on, when he finds that he cannot imagine _not_ eating.

 

“What are you talking about?” Vasya says. She is distracted; Vasily Vasilyevich, Dmitri’s grandson, is having trouble with the Horde again.

 

Morozko repeats himself. Even twenty years ago, he would not have wasted his breath saying something so idle, so inconsequential as this. But he finds himself doing so more and more, lately.

 

Vasya eyes him thoughtfully. “I did not know you could _be_ hungry, winter-king.”

 

“I cannot,” he says. “I _am_ not.”

 

“Do you have a stomach ache?” she asks.

 

This is absurd; he is a _demon,_ he _has_ no stomach with which to ache. But…

 

“I–I do not know,” he admits. A hollow feeling, a nebulous desire for bread and mead and the company of Vasya’s loud, overbearing family. “In any case, I do not _need_ to eat.”

 

“As you say,” Vasya says. She looks as if she can’t decide whether to be worried or amused, but Morozko is relieved that she does not press further.

 

When they sit down for the feast, though, he cannot help but sigh in satisfaction to see the food laid out on the tables. He knows that Vasya notices–Vasya _always_ notices–but neither of them speak of it.

 

 

The third sign comes eighty years later. Vasya’s dark hair is streaked with silver (and each strand hurts to see, oh, it _hurts–_ he cannot imagine losing her, now, and he does not want to think about the day when he _will_ ) and even Marya, wild Marya who was a child not so long ago, is beginning to have crow’s feet and laughter-lines. But he is _Morozko,_ he is–well, he is the winter-king and a chyert, and chyerti do not change.

 

He has thought, at times, that he may be growing mortal. He has wondered if such were even possible, and wondered also if the prospect is one he dreads of desires. So when he wakes up one morning to find silver in his own hair, he lets out a sigh that is half understanding and half terror.

 

Vasya touches it as if were something that might vanish like smoke at any moment. He tries to read the expression on his face and fails for the first time in over a century.

 

“What does it mean?” she asks at last.

 

Her voice is trembling, and so are her hands. He catches them in his own, presses his lips to the knuckles.

 

“I suppose,” he says at last, “that I am grown mortal after all.”

 

The moment he says it, he knows it for the truth. Perhaps he _has_ known it, all these years–that this was the path he was walking, that death would be the price for love.

 

He is relieved.

 

“What?” Vasya says, jerking back. “ _No_.”

 

“Vasya–“

 

“You are going to _die_ ,” she says. Her eyes are full of tears; she is breathing fast. “You are going to _die. That_ is what you are saying.”

 

Not only relief but _joy_. He does not expect it and yet here it is, rising in his heart like the winter wind. “Yes.”

 

“You should not have–“

 

“What?” he cuts in. “Should not have what? Loved you? I think that is my choice.”

 

“And your death?”

 

“Is also my choice.”

 

She draws closer, shaking her head. He takes her hands again, cautiously. She squeezes his fingers and looks him in the eye. He smiles at her in the way that he knows she finds especially charming.

 

“Fool,” she says, softly.

 

“I know,” Morozko replies, and draws her into his arms.

 

 

 

There are more aching joints, and more hunger, and more silver hairs. Marya has children of her own, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, an army of nieces and nephewswho work magic and ride about the worlds on horseback and cause them no end of headaches with their foolhardy adventures. At midwinter, he and Vasya travel across all of Rus’ with presents in their sledge for its children–there are no more maidens left in the woods, and no more enchanted dowries, but he finds that he enjoys the way their small faces light up when they receive a carved toy or a pair of fur-lined boots.

 

The children tug at his sleeve and call him _Ded Moroz._ He calls Vasya _Snegurochka_ in the hearing of one of them, just once, and soon it seems the whole country is convinced that she is the Snow Maiden from the story.

 

“This is your fault,” she says, laughing.

 

“At least they aren’t calling you _grandfather,_ ” he grumbles.

 

“You _do_ look the part,” Vasya says, tugging lightly at one snow-white lock of hair. “It’s only respectful; like Ded Grib!”

 

“Do _not_.”

 

But she is laughing again, and he has a bad feeling that there is more teasing in his future. Marya hears of it, and soon they are _both_ calling him _Ded_ , the two of them giggling like girls, and he has to turn his face to hide his answering smile.

 

He finds it easier to linger into the spring. He finds it easier to wait by the river and watch the sun rise over the moving water. He walks under the flowering trees with Vasya, old and weary and content, and does not tell his brother he is dying.

 

 

 

Medved finds out, of course. His twin is clever and his eyes are sharp, and one night he catches Morozko’s sleeve.

 

“You are mortal.”

 

“Yes,” Morozko says.

 

His brother hisses. “ _When_ were you going to tell me?”

 

“I thought you knew,” Morozko says in the most provoking tones he can manage. “My hair has been going white for the last century, after all.”

 

Hurt, come and gone so quickly Morozko almost misses it. “I might have known that girl would be the death of you.”

 

“It was _my_ choice.”

 

Something of the beast in his brother’s face. Medved, ever opposed to anything he thinks of as defeat. “And you choose this?”

 

“Yes,” Morozko says.

 

His brother releases him. He rubs his hands on his kaftan as though Morozko is something tainted, and steps back, a bright mirthless grin on his face.

 

“Very well then,” he says. “I’ll say my goodbyes now. You _mortals_ are so very fragile.”

 

“Brother–“

 

But Medved only gestures at him, a violent flick of claw-tipped hands, so Morozko goes.

 

“Karachun.”

 

He stops.

 

“Tell the priest–“ his brother stops. Then, with an effort, “tell the priest that I–that I did care for him, in my way.”

 

Not enough to die, Morozko thinks. But more, perhaps, than his brother had ever cared for anyone, and that was something.

 

“I will,” he promises, and lets the darkness swallow him up.

 

 

 

The end, when it comes, is quiet. Vasya’s heart has been giving her trouble, and she is too tired to ride the woods with him anymore. Solovey and the white mare have taken to following her around like ducklings, anxious and pretending not to be, and Morozko feels much the same. There is a night when they all fall asleep together, he and Vasya curled up together in their bed and the horses drowsing by the fire.

 

“I love you,” Vasya murmurs, halfway into sleep.

 

“I,” Morozko says. His voice catches in his throat, and he reaches for her hand instead, squeezing it tightly. “And I you.”

 

She nods. “I know.”

 

When Morozko opens his eyes, there are stars overhead, and they are lying on a road that has no turning. He sits up.

 

Vasya is beside him, blinking at their surroundings. Her hair is black as midnight, and her face is unlined. She reaches for him, cupping his cheek, and that is how he finds that he, too, is young again.

 

“Morozko,” she says.

 

He smiles at her and presses a kiss to her palm.

 

“ _Morozko,_ ” she says. She is crying and smiling at once. “Are you–will you come with me, to wherever that road leads?”

 

He nods, and they speak no more for a long moment. At last he stands, pulling her with him.

 

“The horses,” she says.

 

“They must have–“

 

But there are hoofbeats behind them, and they turn.

 

“ _No,_ ” Vasya says, suddenly fierce. “I told you to stay, to look after Masha and the children.”

 

 _We did not listen,_ Solovey says, a touch haughtily. _It is a very long way, Vasya. You could get lost_.

 

“ _I_ would not,” Morozko says, gazing narrow-eyed at the mare.

 

 _You might_ , the mare says. She comes closer and lips at his sleeve, for all the world like a mother fussing over a recalcitrant child. _You have never taken it as a mortal before_.

 

“You cannot–“ Vasya begins. “You will die, too.”

 

 _I have died before,_ Solovey says. _And I would rather do it with you, Vasya, than alone._

 

She presses her forehead to his, breathes deep. “Solovey–“

 

 _And it is my choice,_ the horse says, and even Vasya cannot argue with that.

 

It is a ride through darkness like any ride through darkness, the two of them knee to knee, the wild of the world all about them. Vasya’s face in starlight is beautiful; Morozko has seen it so a hundred thousand times before, and still he has not tired of it.

 

And now there is a spill of sunlight at the end of the road, and the sound, far-distant but growing ever closer, of Sasha calling his sister’s name. It is, Morozko thinks, as he and Vasya spur the horses on, a great unknown space, this realm of death.

 

He cannot wait to discover it with her.


End file.
